The invention relates to a speckled sugarless chewing-gum.
This chewing-gum arouses the interest of the consumer by reason of its original visual appearance.
The invention relates also to a process suitable for its manufacture.
Chewing-gums of the type concerned comprise an aqueous liquid phase.
They comprise:
about 10 to 40% of a gum base constituted, for example, from a mixture of natural gum, synthetic resins and waxes,
about 9 to 80% of a liquid sweetener constituted by a syrup based on hydrogenated sugars, for example by sorbitol syrup,
about 0 to 75% and, more particularly, about 2 to 75% of a solid sweetener constituted, for example, by a crystalline polyol among which are particularly sorbitol or mannitol,
various flavouring agents, various preserving agents and various agents modifying the texture of the gum base, like glycerin or lecithin.
The speckled appearance is generally obtained by means of solid sweetening particles, colored and possibly flavored.
The proportion by weight represented by the colored particles with respect to the total weight of the chewing-gum is of the order of 0.5 to 3%, particularly 1%.
In practice, the colored particles are constituted essentially of sorbitol colored in the mass. They can be flavored by means of conventional flavorings; it will be possible to use in this respect synthetic or any flavorings obtained from certain plants; there may be mentioned oils of mint, cinnamon, etc.
The particles concerned can, moreover, be sweetened, particularly by means of artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, aspartam and the like.
Their granulometry is generally from 500 to 1500 .mu.m and more particularly from 800 to 1200 .mu.m.
The abovesaid chewing-gums are generally prepared in the following manner:
the gum base is softened in a kneading trough by heating and by kneading,
into the soft gum base are introduced successively, and while maintaining the abovesaid heating and kneading, sweetener in liquid phase, sweetener in solid phase and then, or as the case may be at the same time, the solid sweetening particles, colored and possibly flavored,
the composition thus prepared is subjected, for example, to extrusion, through a die, then to rolling and cutting-up to give it the marketed shape, for example rectangular.
At the moment of its manufacture, the chewing-gum so-obtained has at its surface speckles constituted by colored and possibly flavored sweetener particles, these particles being more or less embedded in the gum base and more or less crushed during the final rolling step.
Now,
when the sweetener particles have been colored in the mass by a water-soluble dye, this dye diffuses very rapidly and integrally into the mass of the chewing-gum,
and even by replacing this type of dye by a water-insoluble dye, or lacquer, the diffusion phenomenon, although slowed down, still exists, particularly with red dyes to the point of becoming detectable after about 10 days and to the point that after about 30 days the dye initially concentrated in the mass of each particle is found to be completely diluted throughout the mass of the chewing-gum, so that it is no longer possible to rediscover visually the position of the initial colored particles, only more or less blurred and indefinite spots subsisting.